


the vessels run to their labors

by tortoiseshells



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Gen, References to Catholicism, Women in the Military, a probably unnecessary amount of Rhode Island references, light Red Sox history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26288479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: On a LST between Utah Beach and Southampton, July 1944, and how the WAVES got there in the first place. (in MercuryGray'sThe Darkening SkyAU.)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	the vessels run to their labors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MercuryGray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Darkening Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24221827) by [MercuryGray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray). 
  * Inspired by [The Darkening Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24221827) by [MercuryGray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray). 



_En route to Southampton, July 1944_  
LST: ‘Landing Ship, Tank’ to the uninitiated, ‘Large Slow Target’ (or ‘Large Stationary Target’ or worse) to her inmates. Few had names, which was blasphemy to pipe-smoking Edie Michaud and just puzzling to Bet Bloom, one bunk down; there wasn’t any _Romance_ in it, Lieutenant Roberta Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish was heard to say (which, in the opinion of the dungaree-d WAVES in the crew berth below, was just about what you’d expect from a woman who’d been through Smith twice). LST 452 was like all her sisters, in most respects: flat-bottomed, shovel-prowed, under-powered, export of Evansville, Indiana, handled like a drunk after last call and always reeking of sea-sickness and diesel. Unlike most of her sister LSTs, however, 452 had _sisters_. In arms, if not in blood: some of the first sea-going WAVES, the pride of Captain Mildred McAfee.

(The late Secretary Knox had hated it, hated them start to finish, but Knox was taking a dirt nap and none of the “lady sailors” had yet been sewn up in their hammocks and thrown over the side, so really, who was winning?)

This was why (thought Alma Sullivan, Radioman Third Class) they’d been given their present duty. Of all the shot-up, broke-down, bloodied outfits to ferry to safety across the Channel, it was elements of the 101st Airborne – the lady paratroopers – that was lined up to meet them on Utah Beach, once ol’ 452 had belched up her cargo of Shermans and Jeeps and TP. Skipper gave the word, and they brought the wrung-out men and women up the ramp, pointed out their racks and told them when chow was … and pretty much let them to it. This wasn’t their first time running battered men out the war, and both Jack and Jane Tar had learned pretty quick that the infantry, parachute or otherwise, just wanted a hot meal and some quiet. Up went the ramp, and 452 groaned as her giant GM diesels grumbled back to life, beginning the slogging slow trip back to Jolly Olde England.

Duties were duties, too. Alma’d gotten a peek at Easy Company, practically having to hop to see over corn-fed Janie Bunyan’s broad shoulders to do it, but the Channel chatter wouldn’t mind itself, nor messages decode or encode on their own initiative – and Hell would freeze over (and the Sox would win the World Series) before Denton, the most irritating of her masculine counterparts, did any filing of radio correspondences. She almost-good-naturedly grumbled her way from her rack to the radio shack, slipping the headset on and pulling a new pencil out of the desk, and the same old noise rolled endlessly through her. _Just the dog watch_ , she told herself, thinking of the tired, haunted faces of the 101st. There were clearly worse things.

* * *

Two years ago, the only ships Alma Sullivan had ever been on were the various Narragansett Bay ferries – mainly the Bristol Ferry, which had disappeared in ’29 with the new bridge, because what cause (but mischief) did she have for toodling around Conanicut? She’d even gone onto Point Judith, too, some once or twice – to see her brother Bill, who’d taken a job working with his wife Ines’s family on a rickety old trawler. None of the boats she’d seen or travelled on ever left her with a good feeling. The work-a-day kind were decayed, and those bringing vacationers to their grand houses and hotels in Newport, Jamestown, or Block Island were full of people who hadn’t heard there was a Depression on. She’d been blessed enough to sail through high school, get a job at a department store in Providence that paid enough to help out at home, and got on with the kind of small-time life the Sullivans had tended to find around Rhode Island since the Great-Something-Great Grandpa Sullivan came over to escape the Famine.

Graduation was ’39. Then the war came, of course. The patriotic thing would be to say: _Oh, I volunteered out of love of my country!_ But the truth was, Alma Sullivan’d gotten “Dear Jane”-ed by Ginny, who’d picked the WACs over her (but really, if Alma was honest with herself, Ginny was always going to pick her career over her girl, and a fair number of folks got dumped for the Army these days, so that was almost respectable, wasn’t it?) – any road, Ginny had left, and she decided to do some leaving of her own.

(That, and the WAVES paid better than Shepard’s.)

(That, and after the hurricane of ’38, she’d figured she’d seen and smelled the worst that the watery part of the world could do.)

No one knew that, of course. When she arrived at USS _Hunter_ , strangely aground in the middle of the Bronx, in early ’43, it was all, _Sullivan? Like those poor brothers?_

Sometime after dinner the first grueling day, she finally cracked and asked around her toothbrush, “Who?”

“Don’t get out much, do you?” sniped her interrogator, looking up from her _Bluejacket’s Manual_ : Peggy Andersen, from somewhere cold and isolated, who’d never seen a body of water bigger than a stock-pond before.

The buzz of conversation in the dormitory bathroom ( _the head?_ ) halted, and Alma fumed – then thought a few things in swift succession, few of which could have been written home, but the most important of which was, _I’m not a sales-girl any more_. She was – well – nobody yet, but she definitely didn’t have to smile kindly at every stray remark that got tossed her way. “Nope,” Alma replied, cheerfully as she could, “’Fraid I don’t.”

Edie Michaud, also from somewhere cold and isolated (and unpronounceably French, bless the great state of Maine) snorted, and pretty, polished Ora Murphy took pity on them all, and explained.

What kind of talk could be had after that? Alma dreamed of apocalyptic fire and the wide-open Pacific, which she kind of assumed to be another, gentler Caribbean, full of coconut trees and bright islands – no matter what had occurred at Pearl Harbor, or what she’d vaguely heard about places like Wake Island and Midway. Little worry. Almost no one was talking about sending girls to sea just then, and storekeepers and cooks and radio-operators stateside tended not to meet such gristly ends. But the days and their runs were getting longer, and then came the talk that the Army was training women for combat.

“I guess that makes sense,” mused giant Janie Bunyan over lunch, pushing a slop of mashed potatoes around her plate, “Molly Pitcher and all that.”

“Deborah Sampson, too,” added Bet Bloom. At the table’s states, she shrugged and said it was in one of the lectures they’d gotten along the way.

“But no women on ships.”

“Bad luck,” deadpanned Edie, who’d been (as they all knew by now) born on a lobstering boat between Stonington and Isle au Haut, and had definite opinions about maritime customs and superstitions.

“Lieutenant Knight said there’s been a few. Nurses on hospital ships, mostly – but there was a female marine on the _Constitution_?” 

Alma, who’d been compelled to memorize ‘Old Ironsides’ as a surly eight-year-old, wasn’t exactly thrilled, but Bet had gone on to list off another few examples from Lieutenant Knight. The new lieutenant had arrived just about the same time as the rumors about sea-service, which only made the cadaverous training officer more mysterious – and the scuttlebutt more credible.

Training wore on.

Alma stared at the ceiling some nights, feeling sore to her corners. It was a sure thing, now, that the Navy was going to send some WAVES to sea – the smart money said transports, but there were a few wild bets about minesweepers. Better pay, at sea. More danger. Mama had written a letter between the two, that Dad was out of work with a broken leg, and Ned was in trouble for being a conscientious objector, but that she couldn’t trust the Navy and she definitely couldn’t trust a boat full of unrelated young men, and Alma had always been such a good, dutiful girl – _stay safe, love from all, Doris appreciated the new galoshes the last pay bought_ , etc.

Was it something to pray on? Toss a coin for? She imagined herself in St. Mary’s worn, dark pews, as though the Holy Virgin herself might appear and point the way. Maybe if she stayed state-side, she’d be stationed in Newport, able to go home and pitch in some nights, or take long walks down Bellevue, or put silk stockings on and order something fancy at the Hotel Viking bar. More likely, though, she’d get stuck somewhere else. Maryland, Texas, California. Maybe Hawaii. But if she was going, why not _go_ – further? It wasn’t likely she’d ever get further than New York City, but it was impossible she’d ever see Europe – or European waters, at least.

They worked it over on kitchen duty and on runs alike. Edie was going, but Edie had forgotten more about boats that even Lieutenant Knight ever knew; Peggy was going, but what Peggy lacked in knowledge she made up in sheer cussedness; Bet was, too, but Alma’s best guess there was that Bet was bored.

Ora wasn’t going – she had a knack for numbers and an eye to the future, and said she’d have better odds getting a good job book-keeping after the war from storekeeping than toting ammunition. “Do what seems right to you,” she said, sitting on the end of her bed. 

That advice, Alma thought bad-temperedly, was all right for some people, as long as they had a cent’s worth of self-knowledge; so far as she could tell, she hated running, tolerated Mass, and liked loud music, baseball, and cold beer, none of which swung her one way or the other. She didn’t care for Peggy Andersen but liked Bet and Edie. If sea-going officers were more like posh Lieutenant Randolph than Lieutenant Knight, she’d rather swim. 

Credits and debits. Money versus danger. Friends versus annoyances. The unknown and … well. The even more unknown.

It was Edie that broke the stalemate, telling her to come along with her and Janie and Bet, and they’d all look after each other. Their paths split, for different schools and for a time, letters crisscrossing the United States for weeks, but ended inevitably in the hastily-retrofitted crew berth of LST 452, soon to depart for Europe.

* * *

Watch done and dinner wolfed down, Alma jogged up the ladder, the cool breeze as sobering as ice coming out of the hot, close compartments below – and the light vanished, leaving the moon glow glinting off the swell . After a few moments, she spotted them: a knot of smokers on-deck, visible only by the glowing ends of their Luckies and Marlboros, the infantry only distinguished by the uniform silhouettes. Fishing through her pockets for her deck, Alma sidled into the circle with a quiet “What’d I miss?” to Bet.

“The Germans have guns and Betty Grable’s gonna leave Harry James for one of the fellas in Easy Company,” she whispered, before loudly introducing Alma as one of 452’s sparkies.

“Alma _Sullivan_? Like the Sullivan brothers?” Edie rolled her eyes, while Alma tried to figure which of the paratroopers said it. Not that it mattered. She’d developed her own little Rolodex of responses: _Yup, and I haven’t learned a lesson yet_ and _Nope, never heard of ‘em, any relation to Gilbert and Sullivan?_ being her current favorites, even after enduring a lecture on light opera from Lieutenant Roberta Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish. As it happen, Alma did have five brothers, and an extended family to match – the _Juneau_ had been a tragedy, and she grieved for poor Mrs. Sullivan, but all in all she preferred the question about her relations than the usual WASP comments about the Irish breeding like rabbits.

“Sullivan? Hey, you know Ted Sullivan, worked at Saybrooke mills in West Warwick?”

Alma looked around the unfamiliar faces, looking for the owner of that voice. _West Warwick – hadn’t thought of that place in a while. Teddy, either_. “He’s my cousin. Who’s asking?”

“Luz,” replied one of the paratroopers, extending a hand, “George Luz. My folks still live there.”

“Newport. Worked up in Providence at Shepard’s,” she replied, with a firm handshake.

“Hey, no shit! Ted and I were on the mill team – mean curveball on that kid.” She’d laughed and agreed, trying to dig up memories of Warwick and West Warwick, a few years and thousands of miles away – was the ice cream parlor still on Bald Hill, or had they moved? Was the beer still warm at the Shamrock Inn? Did he know Teddy’s sister, Mary Silva? Or his brother Frank, at the high school? And further afield – how about the Sox? Could you believe the Navy let Williams play the All-Star game last year? What about Cronin’s broken leg?

“Now you’ve gone and done it,” Edie grumbled, knocking the ashes of her pipe out over the side, "Five minutes for baseball, doll. Some of us follow hockey."

**Author's Note:**

> belated happy birthday, MercuryGray!
> 
> "Alma Sullivan, WAVES" came out of Merc's character generator some time ago, and I ... ran with it. This ended up being heavier on the character introspection than on actually figuring out, in-depth, how the Navy sending WAVES to sea might have actually worked in _The Darkening Sky_ , but I hope the women of LST 452 are interesting enough to make up for it!
> 
> The _is_ an early 19th c. serial novel, _The Female Marine_ , purporting to tell the story of Lucy Brewster, alias Louisa Baker, who'd disguised herself as a man and enlisted as a marine aboard USS _Constitution_ during the War of 1812, which is pretty definitely fake, but apparently has been reported as true at various points in time.
> 
> I admit, I have no idea where George Luz worked between school and WWII, so I picked a likely mill in his hometown (or what Wikipedia says was his hometown). Thank goodness Rhode Island is a small state!
> 
> Title from William Meredith's 'The Wreck of the Thresher'.


End file.
